Lee Kerslake is a body drummer. He doesn't play his kit from the
wrist or from his strong fore-arms. No, the powerhouse of Uriah Heep
puts the full weight of his shoulders - of his whole torso - behind
each crushing baet. It means that his playing is simplistic and
terse but the all-important drive is monumentally stunning.
Lee's body drumming can best be seen during a number like "Circle Of
Hands". It's on this album, and it's easy to picture him rocking
from side to side. He rolls to the right on the downbeat throwing
his whole frame's weight behind the bass drum beat and cymbal crash
then he sways back over to the left on the up-beat heaving his
weight behind the snare-drums off-beat. It needs that sort of
muscular, physical power to work the engine room of a band like Heep.

The rest of the band is only too aware that it was the immediate
musical empathy between Lee and bassist Gary Thain that turned Uriah
into a compact, weighty unit that's able to sell albums and fill
concert halls.

I've always found Lee to be something of a Jekyll and Hyde
character. Off-stage on American tours, he's been known to go
missing for several days always turning up in time for the next gig
with the barest of explanations - often bizarre but somehow
believable. The Lost Weekend just isn't in it. It's that his Hyde
manifestations, his Jekyll is equally surprising. Lee Keslake -
Family Man.

Backstage at a London gig: Lee staggers off after the encores,
towels himself down and is immediately engrossed in playing with his
young son, jutting out his chin for the toddler that he's cradling
in his arms to punch. The little 'un is developing a very fair left
hook.
But sit Lee behind a kit - either in a studio or in a concert hall -
and he's transformed. He concentrates with an intensity unusual for
a drummer who plays fairly simple fills. It's a concentration of
power rather than technically flash. Well, you need to be a mite
beefy to propel a band as thunderously loud as Heep. And Lee's as
beefy as Brovil.